Customer Reviews

Well, all you people that keep buying this thing and making it go out of stock in one day could at least leave a review, couldn't you? Guess I'll do my own, after 4 attempts at getting one of these.

I was really interested in this pencil due to the fact that I love to use 4B lead, and it's rather annoying to have to keep clicking the feeder between every sentence or partial drawing.

While the Automac does a great job of automatically advancing the lead, it is a little weird how it does it, and I'm not sure exactly how it works, and I'm not quite sure if I like it yet or not. Based on my observations, while continuing to write when the lead is almost gone, the lead sleeve will slightly back off of the lead, to allow you to continue to write, and then as you lift up on the pencil, it will advance the lead, however, it is just barely out of the lead sleeve.

This causes a little bit of a strange writing feel, in that if you don't advance the lead yourself, you are always writing with the lead just barely sticking out of the lead sleeve. Sometimes this can cause the lead to not mark as dark of a line as you'd like, depending on the angle at which you hold the tip. If you are really slanted, when you write, this will be more of an issue, however, if you write almost vertically, it won't be an issue at all. I played around with it, and am satisfied with the movement of the lead when auto advancing. It's just something to be informed about.

As far as quality, it is a well designed and manufactured piece. At first, I thought the black portion was metal, but when I got it, I thought it was plastic, until I took it apart to inspect it. It appears to be made out of brass, and then painted with some type of really hard enamel paint. It is really glossy, and has a kind of sparkle to it, which is cool. The grip is also interesting, it is not aggressive like some others I've used, but still has enough of a grip to be useful, frankly, it almost feels soft, even though it's made out of metal, quite a different feeling than expected.

I also did not know that the tip is retractable, like a ball point pen, not just allowing the sleeve to slide back in, it's like the vanishing point pencils, which is really nice. Click gently to advance the lead, click more firmly, and it retracts the tip and a significant amount of extended lead back into the body. Pretty nice bonus.

The clip is really firm, a little more firm than I'd like, but it may keep you from losing it, if you actually put this in your shirt pocket. I put mine in my messenger bag pen slot, and it's somewhat difficult to get in the pocket, clipped in, at least.

I'm really happy about this purchase, and it will probably be my go-to pencil for a long time.

I really want to love this pencil. I carry this and a TWSBI Vac700 fountain pen. My main reason for carrying a pencil at all is for occasions when I might need to erase something I have written, otherwise I use the fountain pen. The problem is that anytime you use the eraser you end up inadvertently advancing the lead. You have to be very conscious of the amount of force you are placing on the eraser to prevent this, sometimes resulting in poor erasing. I have literally had a centimeter or two of lead sticking out in some circumstances after looking at the lead after erasing something.

The lead is advanced by a sleeve that is pushed when the lead gets low enough. However it is also advanced anytime extend or retract the tip. So if you find yourself clicking the back of the pencil to extend the tip only to write a line or two, you will essentially advanced the lead three times, once for the initial extension of the tip, once for the retraction, and a final time for the next time you advance the tip to write.

Between the eraser issues and the lead advancement on clicking the back of the pen, I find myself snapping off a lot of lead, which can get expensive if you use good lead.

All that said I still love the way this pencil feels in my hand. It has a great weight to it, is well balanced, and has a fantastic grip on it. Based on the inevitable lead breakage, I have to dock it a point thought and give it a 4/5.

If there is ever a pencil that has this build quality, with tip advancement like this minus the lead advancement issue, and with the kuru-toga engine, I'll give it a try instead. Until then I guess I'll just keep dropping more money on excess lead.

The lead sleeve has to come into contact with the paper in order to advance the lead, and then only a very small bit of lead is advanced. Otherwise it's a nice looking pen with a solid feel, but of little use to me.

I returned the first automac because it stopped advancing the lead. The second unit worked for a little longer but again stopped advancing the lead. Unfortunately it lasted long enough to prevent a refund rather than a store credit. Was a great pencil when it worked, but turned out to be an expensive mistake.

What i like: the balance and weight feels just perfect for me.
What i am disappointed in:
1) for the cost of this pencil it should work as designed. I bought it mainly for the retractable tip. After a few months of using this pen that feature no longer works. Maybe i just received a bad sample?
2) The barely useable lead advance has been already mentioned.

If this was a $10 pencil i wouldn't even do a write up about it's failings. But at $50 i think these flaws deserve mentioning.

Exceptional mechanical pencil!

this is not that big, and it is kind of light. and when you are writing something, some sound is came from inside of metal body. But if you have money for this sharp. i suggest you to buy this one.

Awesome pencil. Great weight. I am extremely careful with this pencil because I don't want any scratches on it. Beautiful silver body. Gives out a good amount of lead each click. I would definitely purchase this!

Exceptional mechanical pencil! Ordered "Diamond Silver" after enjoying black for a week.

This is a very snazzy pencil with a solid build quality. It's nice and heavy, and the finish has a silky luster that is quite eye-catching. To be honest I haven't gotten much use out of its automatic advancement mechanism; it tends to leave out only a miniscule bit of lead, while I prefer instead to have a mm or two at my disposal. The only other issue I have with this fine pencil is that when putting the tip to paper there seems to be a little "free movement" of the lead, which I assume is due to the idiosyncrasies of the advancement mechanism. However, it's hardly noticeable and unless you're easily irritated by such things you should barely even know it's there.

BAD!! It broke on me. I only have this pencil for two weeks, used it a couple of times. The mechanical hardware inside the pencil is so fragile. Im so sad. So not worth the $$ I spent.

The build quality is awesome ! The pencil feels heavy and the mechanism solid. I don't actually see the need for the trick with the lead tube with spring but whatever. It adds some extra lag and pushing the lead back does not feel smooth.

The build quality is very good it has good balance and weight. I have only used it for a day now which is why I'm sticking to that which I know. That this is built like a tank yet has a very fine mechanism to extract the lead out mm by tiny mm. it is a lot to pay for a pencil but I think if you write a lot or are a pen or pencil lover like me it is worth it. Well done Pilot.